PREFACE
This is a book about race relations in the sovereign state of South Carolina. It gives particular attention to the lengths to which white South Carolinians are willing to go to maintain a caste system of society. And it shows why South Carolina, the prototype of every Deep South state, is not likely to surrender without a catastrophic struggle to accepting the proposition that the Negro is a free individual in a free society with the same rights and privileges as every other American.
In South Carolina, the race issue has always been emphasized in its most exaggerated form and the Negro has helped to create what has become a peculiar and almost unique state of mind. In many respects the state’s history has been little less than a chronicle of the white population’s reactions to the problems created by the presence of a large number of Negroes—a case of the tail wagging the dog. In 1921 Professor Francis B. Simkins considered South Carolina’s failure “to keep abreast of her sister states in non-partisan and classless progress” as intelligible and explainable “only in the light of the perennial fear of disturbing inter-racial harmony.” The state’s “proud record in interracial harmony,” he noted, was based on a policy of “absolute white supremacy.”[2] Similarly, the late W. W. Ball, the Charleston champion of aristocratic conservatism, believed that “socially and politically the presence of this race in majority” was perhaps the ruling factor in the state’s progress or want of it.[3] Summarizing the stand of South Carolina and the South on the decision of the Supreme Court to end racial segregation in public schools, R. Beverly Herbert, a Columbia attorney, expressed the same idea. “A deep sense of race and race preservation,” he wrote, “has influenced and in many cases controlled the South throughout her history.”[4]
I feel compelled to state at the outset certain basic assumptions upon which this study is premised. I believe that the abolition of racial segregation in public schools and public facilities is a desirable end; that Southerners in defending such segregation in the 1950’s are fighting the tide of history just as surely as their forefathers did in defending human bondage a century ago; and that the Negro’s drive to end this segregation will eventually be successful. I recognize the tremendous difficulties presented by this problem due to long established mores and realize that it cannot be solved quickly and without a certain amount of social friction and resentment.
This investigation reveals a way of thinking that is in a sense foreign to most non-Southerners and I ask of the latter patience, understanding and tolerance. But I feel that constructive rather than obstructive action must be taken and that compliance with rather than defiance of the Supreme Court’s verdict must be the rule. I particularly deplore the disrespect for federal law which is inherent in the official policy of the State of South Carolina. In some ways this is the most ominous development of the past few years. In all phases of this investigation I have striven for objectivity and endeavored first and foremost to allow South Carolinians, both white and Negro, to speak for themselves and thereby to express the communal psychology of the state.
Since this study leans heavily on certain South Carolina newspapers, it is appropriate to point out the following about these papers:
The Charleston News and Courier, the largest and probably the most influential of those studied, reflects the sentiments of the most extreme segregationists in the state. Conservative, if not downright reactionary, not only on the race issue but in all political, economic and social questions, the Charleston paper advocates resistance to the Court decisions to the point of defiance of federal authority. The editor of the paper is Thomas R. Waring.
While under the editorship of able Jack H. O’Dowd, the Florence Morning News was the most reasonable and constructive daily in the state with regard to the segregation problem. An advocate of “militant moderation” and an opponent of both white supremacists and the NAACP, O’Dowd became the state’s most controversial editor, subject for the wrath of ardent segregationists. Finally succumbing to pressures, he resigned the editorship in August 1956. His successor, James A. Rogers, is an “orthodox” segregationist.
Controlled by the same company that publishes the morning Columbia State, the Columbia Record, an afternoon newspaper, accepts prevailing views on the race issue, though in considerably less extreme form than the Charleston News and Courier. Also staunchly conservative, the Record leans toward the Republican Party. As of the beginning of this year, the Record’s editor, George A. Buchanan, became Dean of the University of South Carolina School of Journalism.
Decidedly anti-integrationist, the Anderson Independent is less concerned with the race issue than the other papers studied. This is in part a reflection of its upcountry location. The Independent represents to some degree the New-Fair Deal elements in the state and is an outspoken advocate of loyalty to the national Democratic Party. Editor of the paper is L. S. Embree.
These newspapers represent a cross section of the press in South Carolina both geographically and ideologically. Moreover, a study of additional newspapers would not change appreciably, if at all, the basic patterns. (As far as I am aware, there is only one paper in South Carolina which advocates compliance with the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision. This is the Cheraw Chronicle, edited and published by a young and courageous North Carolinian, Andrew McDowd Secrest.)
Other sources, notably periodical literature, the proceedings of the General Assembly of South Carolina, and the Columbia State have been used to a limited extent. For the sake of brevity the newspapers are referred to throughout the text simply as the News and Courier, the Record, the Morning News and the Independent.
The author is a native of Connecticut who has lived over a decade in South Carolina. But this book could not have been written without the assistance of a young scholar who is a Southerner. Legitimately his name should be on the title page but he desires for personal reasons to remain anonymous. Both the research for and a preliminary draft of a major portion of this study were done by him and I wish now to acknowledge this fact and also my obligation to him.
Howard H. Quint
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
[2] Francis B. Simkins, “Race Legislation in South Carolina since 1865,” South Atlantic Quarterly, XX (June, 1921), 168.
[3] Anthony Harrigan (ed.), The Editor and the Republic: Papers and Addresses of William Watts Ball (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954), p. 19.
[4] The State (Columbia, S. C.), Oct. 30, 1955, p. 1-B.